Simulation of the vegetation state and flow regime interaction in the Macquarie Marshes

The Macquarie Marshes is a complex wetland system located in the lower floodplain of the Macquarie River in semiarid Australia. This paper is focused on the northern end of the Macquarie Marshes, where some areas have undergone a complete succession from permanent and semi-permanent wetland to terrestrial species and dryland. This is mainly due to high regulation of input discharges that have modified the hydraulic regime. Estimating discharges that can guarantee preservation and maintenance of the ecological features of the Macquarie Marshes requires the implementation of models that can predict the state of the vegetation and its response to watering conditions. In this publication we use results from a quasi-2D hydrodynamic model (VMMHH 1.0) in order to assess the implementation of simple deterministic transitional rules for analyzing the interaction between the flow regime and the vegetation over an extended discharge series